Is Ann Romney Cracking? Tells Critics to "Stop It. This is Hard."

Ann Romney has been derided as being out of touch and inaccessible, but her recent comments seem to indicate that she is very in touch with the current temperature of the election--in Iowa today she reacted to the naitonal pile-on of pundits, even conservatives saying her husband has to get his campaign together.

During her remarks to the crowd this afternoon, Mrs. Romney said it is “really hard for me as a wife” to watch the campaign unfold. Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan recently wrote that it’s “time for an intervention” in the Romney campaign. William Kristol, a conservative who is the editor of The Weekly Standard magazine, used the words “arrogant and stupid” to describe Romney’s comments about the “47 percent” of Americans who won’t vote for him.

During an interview early this evening with Radio Iowa, Mrs. Romney directly addressed her fellow Republicans who’ve criticized her husband.

“Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,” she said. “This is hard and, you know, it’s an important thing that we’re doing right now and it’s an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.”

Here's the point: the candidate's spouse might have played a key role in the campaign as a good-looking lady who could have humanized her husband and given him that common touch. But she ended up as out-of-touch, alien and strange as her husband and has solidified Romney's role in the public eye rather than softened it.